


men come in different shades (that’s how we’re made)

by Milzilla



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, push (2009) au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-24 23:17:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20022658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milzilla/pseuds/Milzilla
Summary: alex is a sniff and he's following the trail of three escaped division patients. he has no intention of returning them to division though; now if only he could convince them of that.





	men come in different shades (that’s how we’re made)

**Author's Note:**

> technically written for rnm week but mostly written because it's been in my head a long time. this will probably end up like the shadowhunters au, with snapshots instead of a whole coherent fic.

The room is empty.

Alex Manes has encountered many empty rooms in his time. The nature of his job as a Sniff means that the people he’s tracking tend to leave very little behind, trying to leave him nothing to track them by. But this place is unnaturally empty, especially for a motel room. This is clean to the point of purposeful; the trio that he’s following are very good at covering their tracks. 

He wonders vaguely if they’ve met up with a Shadow at some point; their file doesn’t list any of them as Shadows so they would have had to find someone on the outside.

He brings his phone up to his ear and waits for the call to connect.

“They’re not here,” he says.

“Obviously,” comes Maria’s voice in reply. “Did you think this would be easy?”

“I’ve been tracking them for _weeks_ , Maria.” Alex huffs, running his free hand along the sheets of the one bed in the room. Nothing. “Easy went out the window around week four.”

“Can you blame them?” she asks.

“No,” he says, pressing his hand to one of the pillows. He thinks he feels – but no. Nothing again. “But my dad has Flint and Hunter out trying to track them as well. If they find them before we do…”

“I know,” Maria assures him. He hears her sigh on the other end. “I’ll look for them again, but it’ll have to wait until after closing. It’s a little hard to see the future in a bar full of people.”

Alex wishes she didn’t have to. It’s two in the afternoon on a Tuesday and he wishes she didn’t have to mainline tequila after a night of tending bar to get a hit on these guys. Part of him wishes she could do it sooner.

He checks the bathroom while he replies: “Yeah, alright. I’ll have to check in at headquarters anyway. Let them know the trail’s gone cold. Hey, Maria, hold on–” he gets down on one knee, gingerly setting the prosthetic down on the tiled floor, and reaches out to pluck a hair off the shower floor. It curls in his fingers. 

“Alex?”

“Hold on,” he repeats. “I think I found something.”

He holds the hair up between his fingers and brings it up to his nose, closing his eyes to focus in on the very, _very_ faint trace he can sense on the singular hair. It’s so weak that he has to screw his eyes shut further and push his consciousness as far as he can, relying on his practiced breathing technique to keep him grounded as he seeks the source.

They connect, and the images flood into his brain.

_curly hair on a handsome face – takeaway wrappers scattered across a table – a high blonde ponytail and curling lips – warm water splashing over bare shoulders – brown eyes and a soft smile – a stolen blue truck, sleeping bags rolled up in the back, parked in front of a motel six_

Alex pulls himself back and exhales slowly.

“Alex?” Maria’s voice comes over the line again. “You just did your thing, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” he says, committing the location of the motel six to memory. He takes a small zip lock bag out of his pocket and carefully places the hair inside, just in case he needs it again. He’s really hoping that he won’t. He’s used to working longer hunts for Division but these three are _exhausting_. He’s very much ready for this chase to be over and for these three to be delivered safely to Maria and Kyle. Let the other Manes boys chase their tails once their targets are under the protection of a Shadow.

“What did you find?”

“There was a hair,” Alex admits. “I got a location.”

“Off _one_ hair?” Maria asks, incredulous. “Damn. I know you’re good but that’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not that impressive,” Alex mutters, doing one final sweep of the room. He has to be sure that there really is no trace left for his brothers to find. Not that any of _them_ would be able to get a trace of a single hair.

“It is,” Maria argues. “But that’s not the point. Are you going after them now?”

“Yeah,” Alex confirms. “Have to. Don’t want to risk losing the trail again.” Losing them in Chicago had been the kind of stressful that Alex wasn’t looking to repeat. “They’re a few hours away. Roswell, I’m pretty sure.”

“ _God_ , why?” There’s a pause and Maria says something to someone on the other end of the line. “I have to go; Alex, seriously, keep me posted, okay? Call me when you find them.”

“Won’t you just know?” he asks cheekily, closing the motel door behind him and heading out to his jeep.

“Yes,” is Maria’s exasperated answer. There’s fondness there too; he can tell. “But sometimes a Watcher just likes to get a text as well.”

“I’ll call,” Alex promises, opening the door and awkwardly sliding himself into the driver’s seat.

“Okay,” Maria says, placated for now. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” Alex mumbles back before he hits _end call_. He stares at Maria’s contact info for a moment. Her face smiles up at him, framed by brown curls, and it makes him smile helplessly in return. His phone is encrypted beyond belief, set up in a way that means no one but him will ever see this contact information, which means that he can keep a few photos of his friends. It also means that no one but him can read the messages, which would damn more than just him and Maria.

He locks his phone, slips it into the middle console, and starts the car.

He has to drive to Roswell, New Mexico.

*

He hears them scrambling in panic behind the door. It’s nearly thirty seconds before one of them opens the door and Alex’s breath catches in his throat.

It’s the one with the curls and the handsome face ( _Guerin, Michael. Twenty-six years old. Mover._ ). His expression is a carefully blank canvas but his eyes give him away; wide and terrified, looking Alex up and down like the Division credentials will appear if he stares hard enough. He looks as tired as Alex feels but there’s a lightness there that he imagines comes from being on the other side of the country to Division headquarters and also in completely new clothes. Which suit him very well.

Until now, Alex has only had a hair or a toothbrush to work from, though he’d started this chase with a sweater, before the trio had gotten smart about covering their tracks. Standing in front of the man now, no barrier between him and Alex’s senses, is like going days without water and then having someone turn a hose on him. He’s _five feet away_ and he’s getting flashes; of the two that he’s running with ( _Max Evans. Twenty-six years old. Stitch. Isobel Evans. Twenty-six years old. Pusher._ ), of the motels they’ve stayed in, the nights they slept in the sleeping bags in the back of the stolen truck, when they managed to lose him in Chicago, and before that, in the cells of Division, doctors and tests and escaping and being caught and more tests–

Alex wrenches himself out of the flashes. He breathes slowly. He blinks and refocuses.

“Can I help you?” Curls asks. His voice wavers, but only barely. 

Alex has all but announced who he is and what he does, which complicates things. He curses himself for the lapse. “Actually,” he says, carefully. “I’m here to help _you_.”

Curls steps back and the door goes to slam. Alex wedges the foot of his prosthetic in between the door and the frame, hears Curls curse and stumble back as he pushes the door open.

“Michael, what’s wrong –” Ponytail is on her feet in seconds, pushing Curls behind her and next to Soulful Eyes. She meets Alex’s gaze and her brow scrunches.

“No, wait!” Alex closes his eyes and holds up his hands in a kind of surrender. It’s an incredibly stupid move, given that he’s in a room with both a Mover and a Stitch, but he’s hardly going to draw his gun. “Please, just hear me out.”

There’s a pause.

“You have thirty seconds before I make you shoot your own brains out,” Ponytail threatens. Her voice doesn’t waver like Curls’ had.

Alex likes his brains where they are. He decides to cut right to the chase. “I’m part of a small resistance group that works against Division. I know the scientist who helped you escape.”

When they don’t immediately respond, he risks opening his eyes. The three of them are looking at each other, having some kind of silent conversation. Curls has one hand pointed in Alex’s direction, clearly ready to throw him across the room at the slightest perceived danger. He knows that these three are beyond the usual levels of dangerous. They’re the children of some pretty powerful psychics and they’ve been under experimentation in Division’s clutches for at least half their lives. Division’s power-enhancing serum made their parents powerful. It’s made them more.

“My friend, Dr Ortecho,” Alex adds, after this train of thought. He’s not sure whether they’re on a first name basis with Liz; he’s not even sure they know that she helped in their escape. “She swapped your inhibitor doses out with a placebo. She’s the reason you had your powers back that day.”

Something shifts on Soulful Eyes’ face. He exhales softly. “You know Liz?”

Okay, first name basis. Alex nods. He keeps his hands up. “We both work for Division but we’re there to help. I’m _here_ to help.” He gestures very carefully to the small table and chair next to the small motel bed. “Can I sit?”

They all look at each other again. Finally, Ponytail nods, but Curls keeps a hand pointed his way as Alex gingerly lowers himself into the chair. He hates the weakness but he’s been driving for three hours, and he’d been on the move before that. He’s tired and the prosthetic is killing him.

“What should I call you?” he asks, when none of them speak.

Ponytail’s eyes narrow. “You work for Division. You know our names.”

“True,” Alex admits. “I know what’s on your file. That’s not what I asked.”

“Those are our names,” Curls snaps. “Division didn’t take _those_ from us.”

“Okay,” Alex says, still slow and careful. He shifts the names around in his mind; Soulful Eyes becomes Max, Ponytail becomes Isobel, and Curls becomes Michael. “I’m Alex. I need to give my Watcher a call. Is it okay if I reach for my phone?”

Michael nods, but his hands remains trained on Alex.

As if on cue, his phone rings in his pocket. He holds up a hand towards them to indicate it’s okay, then slips the other into the pocket of his jacket and pulls out his phone. He swipes the screen and brings it to his ear, waiting.

“Alex!” Maria’s panicked voice comes through.

“Maria,” he says, trying for reassuring. “I’m with our friends. Did you want to–”

“ _Alex!_ ” she repeats, an urgent hiss. “Get out of there! Flint’s right behind you; he’s about to storm that motel –”

He hangs up and is on his feet before the phone is even back in his pocket. The three others look startled.

“We have to go,” he says. “Division’s here.”

“You led them right to us!” Isobel snarls.

A quick shake of his head. “Not possible. I leave less of a trace than you do.” He taps his nose, the implication clear. He knows what his brother’s can get a trace off and what they can’t. He’s not careless enough to leave something behind. “This is something else. Another watcher, maybe. We have to move.”

“How can we possibly trust you?” Max asks, even though the three of them have started to remove all traces of their presence in the small room.

“We’ll work out some trust building exercises later,” Alex quips, and hears Michael snort from the other side of the room. “Right now, just trust that I don’t want to be caught here by Division either.”

“And if we’re not satisfied,” Isobel says, throwing their takeaway wrappers and drink cans into a trash bag. “The offer to blow your own brains out is still on the table.”

“Noted,” Alex acknowledges with a grumble. He takes the sheets from the bed and dumps them into the tub in the tiny bathroom, running the taps over them. It’d be better to burn them, but they don’t have the time. The water should at least muddy his brother’s senses enough to distract from a proper reading.

“We need somewhere we can hide out,” Alex tells them as they finish up. “Somewhere off the grid. I don’t know the area.”

“We do,” Michael says. Isobel glares at him. He glares back, then turns to Alex. “I know somewhere, out in the desert.”

Alex nods. “Good. I’ll follow you there.” He does a quick sweep of the room, looking for anything that gives off enough of a scent for Flint to pick up on. There’s nothing big.

“It’ll have to do,” he says. “There’s not enough time. Let’s go.”

They hurry out of the motel room and into the vehicles. Alex has one moment to consider that he’d thought the past four weeks were the hardest part of this particular endeavor, before he’s starting the car and following the trio’s stolen truck out of the parking lot.

And to think; he could have had a desk job.


End file.
